MailmanDave
17 Years Experience
Long Island, NY
Male, 43
I am a City Letter Carrier for the US Postal Service in NY. I've been a city letter carrier for over 17 years and it is the best job I've ever had. I mostly work 5 days per week (sometimes includes a Saturday) and often have the opportunity for overtime, which is usually voluntary. The route I deliver has about 350 homes and I walk to each of their doors to deliver the mail. Please keep in mind that I don't have authority to speak for the USPS, so all opinions are solely mine, not my employer.
I don't think you'd get in trouble for that. The recipient may question why the mail and documents look water damaged but I don't know that they could pinpoint it was you who sent it in that condition. Mail is often wet when I deliver it in the rain. It's difficult during downpours to keep it dry and to be honest I don't try that hard to keep it completely dry. The bottom of my mail satchel gets wet very easily so when I carry mail in it the edge of the mail will often get wet. If the recipient has an issue with the condition their mail came in they may just ask you to resubmit the documents if that is possible. Thanks for the question and I hope I helped you.
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It's very common for people not to check their mailbox daily (me included). If there is mail in there from previous days I generally wouldn't look for any outgoing mail. Outgoing mail should have uncanceled postage and be clearly visible when you open the mailbox. Sometimes people leave the lid open or place the letters vertically to show that they have outgoing mail. If the item has no postage I just leave it there. Other people or companies aren't supposed to leave items in a mailbox but it's common and I just ignore it. Landscapers or oil delivery companies sometimes leave an invoice in the mailbox. Every now and again I forget to take someone's outgoing mail, but not often. Some mailboxes may have a red plastic flag that is put in the "up" position to notify the letter carrier that there may be outgoing mail. Upon collection of the mail, the letter carrier should put the flag in the "down" position. These flags are more common in a rural or suburban delivery environment.
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From what I understand, we scan the flats and letters to verify how long it takes mailpieces to get from somewhere to the delivery point. I haven’t heard this for sure. I agree it seems pointless and annoying. I make sure to take the time to do it properly though I don’t trust most of my coworkers to do it. Regarding what to do when it asks i feel the address is on the route, i usually put “yes” if it’s vacant or hold but I have to say I’m probably not consistent with that i do. I’d hit “yes”, then “end scanning” and then “no more to scan” if I had zero mailpieces with me. I’m not sure how it is in Massapequa but the communication as to what we’re supposed to do in any situation is quite half-assed and different supv may give different answers. I have so little faith in the supervisors to give the right information that I often don’t even bother asking. We had a service talk today about how to scan parcels that are on “hold”. The directions were completely the opposite of what we were told in the past. Besides that, I doubt they will repeat the service talk for the carriers who were off today or on vacation. I’m just venting but I think you can relate to my comments. Thanks again for writing and hope you liked my tangent.
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This job message board isn't a customer service site to advise when mail will be delivered to a specific address. Depending on staffing and quality of the operations at your local PO will have an impact as to when your mail is delivered. In my experience mail is usually delivered between 0930 and 1800 but have heard about mail being delivered much later in some locations. If you called the USPS general customer service number i don't think they'd give you anymore of a specific answer either.
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I don't know the answer to this. Most of the time we deliver all of the mail each day that is in our building unless we get backed up with volume or are short on staffing. This may not be the case in the office that delivers your mail. If there is a merchant that you want to go to with a coupon but it arrived late, you could ask the merchant to honor the offer or the business could contact the post office to inquire why their mailing was delivered late. I'm just speculating, but I would think any 3rd Class Mail (the new official term for this will be USPS Marketing Mail) should be delivered within a few days of it being received at the Post Office. Having answered many questions on jobstr, I can see that service consistency varies greatly from office to office and even among the letter carriers in that office.
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Martha, I have no knowledge in the field of hiring and retests for when one fails an LLV test. Since you are applying for a different position at a different location, it's possible they let you retake the exam, but I'm just guessing.
I have no idea about the internal communications of USPS HR and if one dept or location would even know about the other. I'm guessing with the internal HR technology that they might share information about your past applications to the USPS but have no idea what impact that would have for your future hiring prospects. It is very important to learn how to drive the LLV safely and responsibly. I hope you get to take the exam again because I found that once you learn how to operate an LLV safely it becomes second nature even though the steering wheel is on the right side of the vehicle.
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Jvitto58, I don’t know what our manuals say about this situation. I always feel we are given such little guidance on when to drop off a parcel on a relay. I know you are going to have route inspections soon. I don’t have much of a memory of what they are like so I can’t give you my experience. If a parcel doesn’t fit in my satchel, I will generally deliver it when I pass the address. This may be before of after I deliver the relay depending on where the park point is for a particular relay. I don’t flag the mail for addresses that have a parcel. I deliver the mail as I normally would and then deliver the parcel before or after the relay. To be honest, I have a geographically compact route so I often deliver most of my larger parcels before I even begin delivering mail for the day. I know you didn’t ask me this and I definitely don’t recommend doing it on an inspection as it can be considered inefficient or time-wasting. I just like to get the larger items out of my postal delivery vehicle. I try not to circle back with the truck if I can avoid it, but to me there are no absolutes and each day has some different nuances when it comes to parcel delivery. Regarding your route inspection, just try to give a fair effort. Don’t hurry, but don’t be a turtle either. I truly don’t have any great guidance because I’ve rarely, if ever, been involved in one.
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